Wipe products have become an important product category that has found a wide variety of applications for adults and babies. Examples include face or body cleansing wipes, wipes for skin treatment, and skin conditioning wipes. Over the last couple of decades so-called wet wipes have become successful as products particularly suited for these applications. These products typically are manufactured by impregnating sheets made of non-woven fabric with a suitable lotion.
Recent innovations in the wipes area included improvements in the fabric, in the impregnating liquid as well as in product presentation.
Initially, wet wipe products were made of traditional non-woven materials based on paper making technology (pulp based products). These products were well accepted but deficient in softness of the fabric material. The introduction of the ‘spunlace’ non-woven technology offered products that, compared to traditional paper based products, were superior in terms of softness, and also strength. This is mainly due to (i) the use of long soft fibres (most frequently rayon and PET/PP or a mixture of these fibres) in the spunlace process and (ii) the fact that during the spunlace process no binder is added to the fabric.
Apart from these developments, wipe products have been embossed or apertured mainly for aesthetic reasons. EP-A-705932 discloses non-woven fabrics having a planar background portion and at least one raised portion forming a three-dimensional pattern projected out of the plane of the background portion, wherein the base weight of the raised portion or portions is equal greater than the weight of the background portion. EP-A-1032366 discloses personal cleansing wipes comprising a substrate from hydro-entangled fibers having a three-dimensional pattern wherein the density of the raised fibrous regions is the same as the density of the base surface, and an aqueous cleansing composition.
In addition to the above lotions have been developed which offered skincare benefits in addition to the basic cleansing properties of the wipe. One approach was the introduction of lotions that were based on oil-in-water emulsions which delivered useful properties such as superior mildness, moisturization, protection and skin smoothness, when compared to simple aqueous cleansing formulations. Another approach encompassed the incorporation of active skincare ingredients, e.g. chamomile, into simple aqueous formulations, thereby delivering useful properties such as soothing. Current wet wipe products still are based on these approaches in that they are impregnated with either aqueous lotions or with oil in water emulsions.
This is in particularly required in wipes for personal cleansing and in particular in wipes used for babies and infants. In the latter instance wet wipes are used for cleansing the perineal region when changing diapers. Inadequate cleaning not only results in personal discomfort but also gives rise to diaper rash and other infection related phenomena. It has been shown that the most effective way of preventing diaper rash is to cleanse the skin thoroughly and to remove the microorganisms that have been identified as causative. The source of these microorganisms is often the fecal deposits that can remain on a baby's skin while wearing the diaper. Because fecal deposits consist of both water-soluble and oil-soluble matter, however, complete removal of fecal deposits from the diaper area requires both water-based and oil-based cleansing agents.
Another object of this invention is to provide products for cleansing and other applications that allow convenient and quick application, are easy to carry, as well as an easier and more evenly distribution of the ingredients in or on the product. They moreover should be convenient for application on babies and children.
Irrespective of its end use the softness of the wipe product is of primary importance to the consumer. Softness of the wipe material on the one hand and perceived softness of the skin after usage of the wipe on the other hand are important consumer benefits. This in particular is the case for applications on babies.
A second approach in improving the softness of non-woven fabrics is to add fabric softeners to either the finished product or to the fibres used as raw materials. This approach has been taken in many applications of dry non-wovens. Particularly in dry facial tissue products and toilet paper the softness has been significantly improved via the addition of ‘fabric softeners’. Most of these softeners are silicon-based compounds or derivatives thereof.
In spite of these improvements there is still a need to improve softness of wipe products. Providing such products is an object of this invention.
These objects are attained by the sheet products of this invention that show increased softness.